The Book
by mllememoire
Summary: They used to be great friends, Petunia and Lily. Together they had many grand adventures, which they recorded in the Book. Long after they grow apart, the book which once tied them together breaks them apart forever.


The Book  
By MlleMemoire  
  
Summary: They used to be great friends, Petunia and Lily. Together they had many grand adventures, which they recorded in the Book. Long after they grow apart, the book which once tied them together breaks them apart forever.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in the story below, though I do own the actual text and the situations I placed JKR's characters in. Please do not reproduce.  
  
They used to be great friends, Petunia and Lily. When Petunia was five and Lily was barely four, Lily had tried to sneak off to school to be with her older sister on her first day, only to be caught hiding behind a bush just outside the house. The next year, Petunia managed to stay in Lily's classroom until just before lunch, when her teacher found her.  
  
At home they were just as close. Calling each other Petty and Lils (though Petunia never allowed Lily to call her that in public), they explored the house, played secret agent in the backyard, and spied on the neighbors through holes in the fence, writing in notebooks about each of their adventures as soon as Petunia could write. She always had the better handwriting, so even though Lily could scribble the alphabet long before her peers, Petunia remained in charge of the Book.  
  
While spying on five year old Jack Next-Door one day, twelve year old Petunia and ten year old Lily (whose birthday was but a day away) found themselves talking about school and friends, as they had done since they were old enough to be bored with what the kids on either side of their house did in their yard. As Petunia listened to Lily's story about Alex's toad, which she had to admit was slightly boring, she found herself paying less attention to Lily's voice and more to the yard around her. It was lovely, with many trees, and a nice little combination flower and vegetable garden next to the house. The leaves were beautiful, already beginning to turn orange though it was a week before the end of summer. Wait--what was that?  
  
"Lily, why is there an owl in that tree--aren't they nocturnal?"  
  
Within a single moment, her life permanently altered its course. As Lily read aloud the letter the owl had tied to it's leg, Petunia's mind spun. Why didn't she get a letter? Was she not good enough for them? Was Lily really that much better than her, when they had always though each other to be equals? Her mind spun as she was forced to question everything she knew within the space of a few minutes, including her own worth.  
  
They might have been able to ignore it if it hadn't been for that woman who came to help Lily find Diagon Alley. Their parents had attached a letter to the owl's leg, asking if it was a joke, and told it to go back to whoever had sent it. When a Professor Minerva McGonagall arrived at nine a.m. the next day, Petunia was forced to realize the truth: Lily was a witch, and she wasn't.  
  
Petunia had always had problems with jealousy. When her friends bought new clothes, Petunia begged and begged until she was able to buy some, too. When a school rival had a summer party, Petunia pleaded to be able to have one of her own. However, she had never been jealous of Lily before. It had always been like the Three Musketeers between them, except for the fact that there was only two of them, and Petunia had never had any reason to be jealous of Lily, nor the other way around. It was a new experience for the young woman to feel such strong feelings against her sister, and, not wanting to upset anyone, she hid them.  
  
As hidden hurt and anger tend to, Petunia's resentment grew and festered over the years. When Lily came home for summers early on in her magical education, Petunia spoke little to her sister, though the conversation was not exceedingly awful when they did speak. Lily tended to ramble on about her new school, and Petunia was eager to hear about it despite her jealousy.  
  
However, distance began to separate the two where bad feelings had not. By the time Lily had finished her fourth year, Petunia only came home to eat, sleep, and ask their parents for more spending money. As she spent her time hanging out with friends in malls, around the high school, and in nearby towns, Lily stayed around the house, telling her mother about school and writing to her friends while sitting under the willow tree in the backyard. The paths of the sisters rarely crossed.  
  
The summer before her seventh and final year of school, Lily found the Book in a box of old things in her closest while reorganizing her room. Flipping through it, she grinned as she remembered how much fun she and her best friend for so long had had back then. The last page made her eyes sting and her nose tingle--it was full of notes about Jack Next-Door, Petunia's then rival, Laura, and Alex's toad.  
  
Turning to a fresh page, Lily bit her bottom lip and scribbled out a note with the old pencil Petunia had used to write the last entries. Looking down at what she had written, she smiled a bit when she realized how little her handwriting had changed since she wrote that entry at age nine when Petunia had a broken finger.  
  
My dear Petty,  
  
Whatever happened to us? Where did it all go wrong? If I knew,  
nothing would be able to keep me from trying to fix it.  
  
Love from,  
Your Lils  
  
Less than five years later, Petunia found the Book while sorting through what was left of her parents' home. At the sight of the slightly charred journal, she couldn't stop herself from crying. The tears rolled down her cheeks as she flipped through the pages, smiling a bit at their childish exploits. When she found the last page, her smile disappeared.  
  
It was Lily's fault they had grown apart, and she hadn't even realized it. It was Lily's fault that their parents were dead, murdered by a magical psychopath. Lily had brought their whole family into a world where they didn't belong, and now Petunia would have to pay the price.  
  
Petunia angrily wiped the tears from her cheeks and walked away from the wreckage of her childhood home, her husband's arm around her waist, their son balancing on his opposite hip. She was done there. 


End file.
